U.S. Stance on Forced Birth Control Ignored : Contraceptive Makers Aim at Chinese Market

Undaunted by U.S. opposition to China’s limit of one child per family, American contraceptive makers displayed their wares today at a birth-control exhibit in hopes of grabbing a share of the potentially lucrative market.

Exhibit participants were more interested in discussing technology than a Reagan Administration decision to withhold its contribution to U.N. family planning money destined for China because of concern it might finance forced abortions.

“Cutting off the aid was good for us. It means they’re paying us for these things, not getting them free,” said Richard P. Decker, trade manager of the New York-based China Trade Promotions Ltd.

“This is something (China) must have,” said Decker, who arranged for American companies to join the exhibition. American opinion on China’s policy, he said, “is not going to change people’s business practices.”

Hundreds of Chinese officials who implement the one-child policy attended the exhibition by special invitation. They lined up to collect birth control literature and samples of “Super Sex” and “Fiesta” brands of condoms and to watch videotapes describing production of birth control devices in Western countries and Japan.

Also on display were devices and substances used for abortions and for detecting pregnancies and abnormalities in fetuses.

China, which is trying to limit growth of its 1.03 billion population to 1.2 billion by the end of the century, denies that it physically forces women to have abortions.

It says it uses “education and persuasion,” often carried out by persistent women from neighborhood committees, to deal with unauthorized pregnancies.